More than 140 people have died in an explosion while rushing to scoop up fuel from a crashed tanker in north-west Nigeria, in one of the country’s worst such incidents in recent times.
Local authorities said the vehicle crashed late on Tuesday night after the driver lost control on the Kano-Hadejia expressway near the town of Majiya in Jigawa state. It then exploded while onlookers were scooping spilt fuel with cups and buckets.
“People gathered around the accident scene,” Shi’isu Adam, a spokesperson of the Jigawa police command, was quoted as saying in a local newspaper, the Cable. “That is the reason for the mass casualty.”
Jigawa state emergency services put the death toll at 147. Dozens more were seriously wounded.
Adam said a warning from officials not to approach the vehicle went unheeded and that a crowd overwhelmed security personnel.
Crashes involving tankers are common in Nigeria, one of the world’s largest oil producers, because road transport is the most popular form of conveying cargo across a country with inadequate rail infrastructure and a chain of underused airports. According to the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, several hundred spills happen nationwide each year, even outside the hotspots of oil-producing areas in the Niger delta.
Fuel has become a commodity coveted almost as much as food in poorer areas of Africa’s most populous nation, where the economy is in its worst state in a generation. Fuel prices have tripled since the start of last year, when the government removed a fuel subsidy, exacerbating a cost of living crisis. Desperation rose further last week after the state oil company raised prices for the second time in just over a month.
Despite the risks, increasing numbers of people are being drawn to the scene of tanker crashes to recover fuel that they either use at home or sell.
On Wednesday the junior petroleum minister, Heineken Lokpobiri, directed a regulatory agency to “promptly commence a detailed investigation into the circumstances surrounding this unfortunate event”.
He said: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the injured and we wish them a swift and full recovery.”
